Orbital Internet: Defense Innovation Unit Spinning Space Web for JADC2.

• Author: Carberry, Sean

On paper, the Defense Department's joint all-domain command and control initiative is clear: deploy sensors by land, sea, space and air; transmit sensor data to command centers for fusion, analysis and decision-making; then transmit data out to forces and weapons systems to act on a target.

For it all to work, enormous amounts of data need to move quickly. However, legacy communications networks lack the bandwidth.

Enter the Defense Innovation Unit's Hybrid Space Architecture program, which "seeks to provide global, ubiquitous and secure internet connectivity throughout the space domain for commercial, civil and military users, including international allies and partners," according to a July 2022 press release.

While the program could provide an array of uses and benefits, it would be critical to enabling JADC2, Hybrid Space Architecture Program Manager Rogan Shimmin said in an interview.

"There's a lot of different efforts within the government trying to figure out what the JADC2 puzzle is," he said. "I would interpret that they're still designing the puzzle. They're figuring out what picture they want the puzzle to present, whereas we're actually starting to build the pieces."

Regardless of what the puzzle looks like, there is consensus about some of the pieces needed. There will need to be some sort of dynamic mesh network to interconnect nodes and platforms that don't currently talk to each other. And space will be the critical domain for collecting and transporting data, he said.

The original motivation behind the Hybrid Space Architecture program, Shimmin added, was that current systems could not transmit all the data being generated by intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance constellations--there are limited numbers of ground stations and narrow windows when satellites pass over and can transmit.

"And it can be hours before it's back over ground station," he said. "And you've only got a three-to-five-minute window as the satellite passes overhead to download all your data. Some vendors said they were only able to download about 2 percent of data."

The duty cycle of satellites is only increasing, which generates even more data to transmit, he said.

The commercial sector has been making giant leaps in space-based communications with systems like Starlink, Telesat and OneWeb, he said. "The commercial space industry is making this reality something that had been considered impossible even in military circles," he said.

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